This Week in Religion (October 30)

Paris (Religion News Service ) For the second time this month, the Church of Scientology has won a battle against its dissolution in Europe, despite a stiff sentence handed down by a Fredn court against its operations here.

In a verdict delivered on October 27, a Paris court fined the church's Celebrity Center and its bookshop in the French capital nearly $900,000 for defrauding former members. It handed suspended prison sentences to four church leaders and fined two others.

WASHINGTON (Religion News Service ) Religious freedom experts called for more specifics in the State Department's
policies on international religious liberty, but welcomed a new report
that highlights abuse faced by people of faith throughout the world.

Released
by the State Department on Monday (Oct. 26), the status report on
religious freedom in 198 countries and territories pays particular
attention to authoritarian governments...

NAIROBI (Religion News Service/ENI) An Anglican bishop in Uganda has rejected
proposals that gays and lesbians should face the death penalty for
sexual assault in some cases, but says prison terms should remain as a
deterrent to homosexuality.

"We want to state categorically that homosexuality is unacceptable," Anglican Bishop Stanley Ntagali of Masindi-Kitara diocese said in an interview.